Brianna P
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Blackwell follows two men, Jacob O'Connor and Magnus Blackwell, who meet on their very first day of architecture school at Harvard. Jacob is an orphan who is attending Harvard through a scholarship, while Magnus is from one of the wealthiest families. No one expected the friendship between the two and some believed that Magnus befriended Jacob out of pity. It seems as if their friendship would last forever, but then Frances comes along. Both of them are attracted to her and eventually begin to catch feelings for her. The story truly begins when Frances calls off the wedding with Magnus, and not too long later marries his best friend Jacob.
I loved this book. It was interesting how much magic and voodoo were mentioned, but magic didn't too much seem to play a part of the story. While the magic did seem very much real, I felt like it was more jealousy, rage and karma that played a part in the actions of Magnus and Jacob. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good lover scorned story or even someone who enjoys a story revolving around revenge.
Let's just say, I expected more. Majority of the book covered media speculation and quarells between media outlets than it did the details of the case. I would have liked to hear less about the awful things people said about Barbie Latza Nadeau, and more about Amanda Knox. It's just that for a book with the subtitle “The Real Story,” it seemed like it would've been more about the person you are writing about than how people viewed you while covering the trial. Quite frankly, I don't care that people called you “a failed travel writer.” I want to know about Amanda Knox and her trial and even a little about her so called accomplices' history. Maybe even a little about her childhood and her life before coming to Perugia.
I just went in expecting so much more when it in the foreword it said, “...she attended almost every session of Knox's murder trial, read the entire ten-thousand-page legal dossier in Italian...” I was just like oh fuck yeah she has to know a whole lot and such be able to get through some of the language barrier. Like hell. Whatever was in the ten-thousand-page legal dossier must of left her mind after a few chapters. And speaking of chapters, the chapter titles were just plain distasteful.
I gave the book 2 stars because it seems very promising until we get to part where Amanda and Raffaele were arrested. After that I felt like I could have just read Nadeau's coverage articles and got about the same amount of information.
Don't Look Back is my first Jennifer L. Armentrout book and I plan to read more books from her. I loved how easily she could pull me into this story. There were so many twists and turns as we try to figure out what happened to Samantha and Cassie. I was intrigued from the moment the mysterious girl is walking down the road and a police officer sees her. It's like who is this person and why is she all messed up walking down a road alone. And then even after we learn who she is, I am still intrigued because she was missing along with her best friend Cassie. So now I am wondering, well where the heck is Cassie?
Samantha basically can't remember anything and we follow her as she tries to remember who she was and what her life was like piece by piece. So many questions arise. At various points in the story, you can just about see everyone as a person of interest in Cassie and Samantha's disappearance except the person that actually had something to do with it. I just don't know how I missed it to be honest. I just didn't think that person would be so cruel. But overall, I loved this story and recommend it to anyone who loves young adult and a good mystery novel.
DNF a little close to being halfway through it. I was just confused on why he was in detention and what that had to with what was going on at home. I guess I just couldn't relate to Roger and just couldn't figure out what was really the deal with him. Don't even get me started on this so called “detention” area.
This novella still didn't make me like Aspen anymore than I did. I really didn't like he tried to plant it in America's head that Maxon wasn't good enough for her. Like you're the one that told her to put the form in to join the selection and you broke up with her. He only wants her because it's possible someone can get her. Typical
Check out the original review on my blog here
I liked this book, however I didn't appreciate some of the ways that Willow's cutting was dealt with. I did understand how Willow could blame herself for her parents' death because she was the one driving the car, but with the fact that her parents had been drinking it's kind of like would it had still happened. I just couldn't get around the fact that two parents would allow their child drive in a terrible storm knowing that she doesn't have a driver's license (only a learner's permit). It didn't seem like her parents were being too responsible.
I didn't think that Guy was a good person for Willow, he just didn't deal with things in the most healthy way for Willow. Overall, I thought the book was really good. I'm not really familiar with people self-harming. Like I know there are people who cut themselves and people who starve themselves, but I never understood it. I'm not saying that this book is the perfect representation of the topic, but it did give me a little insight into the topic.
